Israeli Troops Kill 4 Palestinians

Published 7:00 pm, Friday, August 30, 2002

Associated Press Writer

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) _ Israeli troops shot and killed four Palestinians early Sunday who said were suspiciously moving toward the gravesite of a Jewish rabbi, the army said.

The killing followed an Israeli missile strike Saturday that killed five Palestinians in the West Bank, including a militant and two children. Later Saturday, a Palestinian gunman infiltrated a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, wounding two Israelis before being shot dead.

Also Saturday, Israeli soldiers arrested the top West Bank political leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas during a sweep in the city of Ramallah. And late in the day, an Israeli tank fired a shell into a house in a Gaza Strip refugee camp, moderately wounding five members of a family, Palestinian hospital sources said.

The Palestinian gunman cut his way through the fence at the settlement of Har Bracha, near Nablus, and opened fire, wounding a pregnant woman and her husband, the army spokeswoman said in a press release.

A soldier who was on furlough at the settlement heard the shooting and opened fire, wounding the gunman in the leg. He limped away in the direction of the fence, but was shot dead by the residents' emergency squad, which arrived on the scene, the communique said.

The militant Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack. It was the first Palestinian attack to bring Israeli civlian casualties since an Aug. 4 suicide bombing killed nine.

On Sunday, Israeli troops killed four Palestinians who the army said were suspiciously moving toward the gravesite of a Jewish rabbi.

The army said they had warnings that four Palestinians would try to carry out an attack in the area, not far from the Palestinian village of Bani Naim, south of Hebron, and then saw the four moving toward a field.

The troops opened fire on the group and killed all four, the army said. On their bodies, which are still being searched, soldiers found a saw and wire-cutting equipment, indicating they were planning to infiltrate a Jewish settlement in the area, the army said.

Israel has pursued an intense crackdown on militants while imposing curfews and restrictions on Palestinians in West Bank towns and areas under the military's control. A million Palestinian children began a new academic year Saturday, braving curfews, roadblocks and closures to get to their schools.

An Israeli helicopter fired three missiles at a car in the northern West Bank town of Toubas, apparently targeting two militants from the Al-Aqsa Brigades, affiliated with Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.

One of the militants, Rafat Daraghmeh, was killed, as were two teens in the car and a 10-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl walking nearby, said witnesses and hospital officials. The other militant, 27-year-old Jihad Sauafta, and six bystanders were wounded.

Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat called the strike a "brutal act of murder."

"This is a continuous policy of assassinations conducted by the Israeli government that aims to undermine all efforts to revive the hope of peace," Erekat said.

The Israeli army issued a statement expressing "sorrow over the loss of civilian life." It said its helicopters "hit a car carrying several wanted men responsible" for planning attacks in Israel that were to have taken place in the next few days.

In Ramallah, the Hamas leader, Hasan Yousef, was captured at a house in the center of town and herded blindfolded into an Israeli military vehicle along with another unidentified man. The capture was filmed by Associated Press Television News.

Yousef heads the political wing of Hamas in the West Bank, and the Israeli army said it had been hunting for him for some time. Military sources said a substantial amount of money was found in Yousef's hide-out, but they gave no exact figure.

In a wider sweep in Ramallah, Israeli soldiers rounded up an unknown number of men, leading them away in blindfolds.

"Israel is playing with fire and the continuation of arrests, assassinations and aggression against our people and against our leaders will not stop the resistance," he said

Hamas has claimed responsibility for scores of suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israelis in the near two-year conflict.

In the Gaza Strip late Saturday, some 5,000 people took to the streets to protest Yousef's arrest and the helicopter strike at Toubas. The crowd chanted calls for revenge and housed Palestinian flags and Hamas banners.

In other violence, the Al-Aqsa Brigades on Saturday executed Mohammed Abu Oun, 29, in the center of the northern West Bank village of Jabaa, after accusing him of helping the Israelis kill a local militant leader in early August, according to local residents.

Israel says its crackdown in the West Bank and Gaza is necessary to root out militants in the wake of a spate of suicide bombings inside Israel _ though there's been a lull in such bombings for almost a month.

On Saturday, tens of thousands of Palestinian children in their school uniforms tried to make their way to their schools. Some lined up outside checkpoints, opening their backpacks for Israeli soldiers to check. Others took dirt side roads or mountain paths to avoid the roadblocks.

Israel lifted its curfew for part of the day in several West Bank towns, though it remained in place in Jenin and the Israeli-controlled section of Hebron, keeping thousands of students at home.

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Also Saturday, Interior Minister Abdel Razak Yehiyeh, who heads the Palestinian security forces, met U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield as part of talks aimed at reducing tensions.